Background: My house is chaos. Someone is always having a meltdown in the kitchen. (Sometimes it’s me.) I want to make sure I can find quiet corners to watch the game and not be stuck in the downstairs. I have to have buttered noodles on hand at all times. My kids are all picky eaters and my wife and like to be adventurous. I’m trying to expand the things I serve without expanding the work and the dishes. I know the flavors and textures in this move can be recombined in many ways and there’s something for everyone. This might be considered a recipe except for the fact that it might result in buttered noodles for one, meatballs with no cook pizza sauce over noodles for another, soy marinated meatballs over rice for another. Here are the moves.
- Buy a pound of ground pork.
- Make some buttered noodles if you don’t have them on hand.
- Get a big bowl and put two pieces of the heel of a loaf of bread. It’s fine if you only have 1 heel.
- Pour milk over the bread and let it sit until the milk soaks in.
- Mix in the ground pork.
- Mix meat with garlic. I use garlic confit but you can use blanched granulated or raw.
- Season the meat with a few pinches of salt. Go easy.
- Take a 1-ounce ice-cream scoop and scoop out half the meatballs onto a foil sheet on a sheet tray or the tray of an air fryer.
- Scoop out the other half on another sheet of foil.
- Baste one batch of meatballs with extra dark soy sauce.
- Roll the other batch of meatballs in your favorite dried Italian herbs and a little salt.
- Cook on 400 degrees in whatever oven, convection oven, or air fryer you’ve got until the internal temp is 160 degrees.
- Serve with No Cook Pizza Sauce, buttered noodles, and Parmesan cheese.
Why It Works:
- I often grind my own but I used store bought 80/20 this time because three kids and Super Bowl. This muscle to fat ratio will help keep the meat moist if it stays in a bit too long because if a big play. Double it if you want to guarantee leftovers. This should make 16 meatballs. Adjust according to your crowd.
- It doesn’t really matter what kind of buttered noodles you use. I would use something as sturdy or sturdier than Spaghetti. You know you aren’t in charge of the noodle selection.
- Any piece of bread will work. I use the heel because no one will eat it.
- You are essentially making a quick panade here. This is another line of defense (ahem) in case the game prevents you from pulling them out in time.
- You want to kind of mash up the panade as you do this.
- You could mix the garlic and the panade in at the same time, but because they are two different textures, I like to mix them separately for even distribution.
- There’s going to be salt on the outside of the meatballs too.
- Use one of those mechanical scoops. I just leave the bottom flat. So I guess technically they are more like meatwads or meatmounds than meat balls.
- My air fryer has two shelves so I use foil on top of those. You could use the same sheet tray and do two batches or put each batch on its own sheet tray. It depends on how many dishes you want to do.
- I use a silicone basting brush for even coverage. This also allows me to recollect soy sauce that has dripped onto the foil to reapply another coat.
- I mixed basil, oregano, chives and salt.
- I use this guide on cooking temps and I use a Thermoworks Thermapen to measure. But this recipe is very forgiving on both sides of the ideal temp.
- The key to this move is that you are prepping for two meals (or a meal and a party).
Mods:
- If you have rice ready to go, and you add leftover soy sauce meatballs to dry slaw plus mod 2, you have lunch or dinner for tomorrow.
- If cover the leftover Italian seasoning meatballs in No Cook Pizza Sauce, they will keep for a few days and you have another meal (Meatball sandwich?) or pasta or pizza topping.